Lisa Murkowski

Lisa Ann Murkowkski (22 May 1957-) was a US Senator from Alaska (R) from 20 December 2002, succeeding her father Frank Murkowski.

Biography
Lisa Ann Murkowski was born in Ketchikan, Alaska on 22 May 1957, the daughter of future governor and senator Frank Murkowski. She earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Georgetown University in 1980, and she received her juris doctor from Willamette University College of Law in 1985. From 1989 to 1998, she worked as a private lawyer in Anchorage, Alaska, and she was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1998 as a member of the Republican Party. In 2002, when her father became governor, he nominated Lisa to take over his old seat in the US Senate, and this act of nepotism led to a referendum being adopted, banning the governor from directly appointing replacement senators. In 2004, she defeated Governor Terry Knowles for re-election, and she won a write-in re-election campaign in 2010, defeating the Sarah Palin-backed Republican challenger Joe W. Miller in the first victory by a write-in senatorial candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954. Murkowski was known for her more libertarian views, as she was pro-choice on abortion, supported embryonic stem cell research, supported Planned Parenthood funding, supported hate crime prevention acts, supported the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and supported gun rights, while she opposed affirmative action, Obamacare, and same-sex marriage (a view she later reversed).